Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69711 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69711 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Were I alone here, I would remain, fighting to my last breath to save Pyreda and my people. But I cannot bear to expose my mate to one more moment of danger. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to get her to safety immediately. To protect her.
“No! We can do this, I know we can! We just need to trust!” Renee arches her head up and seals her lips over mine. Sublime music swells in the bond, drowning out the crackles and rumbles all around us.
My heart surges, overflowing. My queen presses herself against me as if she intends to climb inside my chest. She’s giving everything to the kiss—her heart. Her soul. Her love. Her moans. All echoing in the bond, each one a cord binding us closer.
I can give no less. I lean over her, breathing her in, plundering her sweet mouth with my tongue. She yields to me with a sigh. My Omega. My mate. My queen.
I sift my talons through her silky fire-stone hair and grip the back of her neck. Her collar bites my palm.
She might wear my collar, but she has leashed my heart.
I break the kiss, vowing, “I love you, Renee. I belong to you. Completely. Forever.”
“As I am yours. No matter what happens.”
I gaze at her, memorizing every detail of her beautiful face just inches from mine. A lilac crystal flutters down and settles on her long, dark lashes. She blinks. “Look! It’s snowing.”
A gust of freezing air blows us sideways. Straining to beat my wings against the force of it, I fly us towards a pocket of clean air. Plutus circles us, screeching.
Renee cranes her neck to look past my shoulder. “There! It looks like the lava is cooling.”
A magical cold front is enveloping us, bringing clear, crisp winds to sweep away the ash, and coating the landscape with a lilac blanket of snow. Grey clouds sheath the volcano, freezing its fire in mid-blast.
We watch and wait for several tense moments, but no more lava erupts from Mount Vracor. The molten rock that oozed boiling crimson like a bleeding wound is rapidly healing over—first turning black, then smattered with pale purple as the freezing flakes continue to float from the sky.
The rumbling has stopped. All is still. Even Plutus has stopped screeching.
“Holy shit. It looks like it worked!” Renee beams up at me and I wipe the ash from her face, smearing it across her wind-chapped cheeks. With her eyes red-rimmed from the smoke, her lips plump from my ferocious kiss, she’s never looked more beautiful.
“I believe it did.” I wait another moment, marveling at the miracle taking place all around us. Soft snow continues to drift down, cooling the raging fires of Vracor—soothing the demon’s heart. “The volcano is at peace. Pyreda is safe. And we are one.”
“Then kiss me again,” Renee says. “And take me home.”
Nineteen
Renee
Returning to the castle feels like coming home. I’m still reeling from everything that happened today but I can’t stop grinning. Krav loves me. He finally opened up and let me in. We beat the volcano.
How quickly things can flip from utter despair to absolute joy. All I need now is to thaw out. I’m chilled to the bone.
A jynx appears as Krav is rubbing my hands by the fire, winding through the air like a diaphanous eel. For once, I didn’t jump out of my skin. Things sure are looking up.
“Allow the villagers to spend the night,” Krav tells the servant. “See to their every need. In the morning, provided Mount Vracor’s fires have cooled completely, they may return home.”
The jynx disappears with a swoosh.
Krav gets a pitcher and pours me a cup of hima juice to wash the dust from my throat. I gulp down the refreshing drink while he rolls his shoulders and slowly folds his wings.
“You brought the villagers here? Through the portal?” Everything happened so fast when the ground started shaking.
“The ones from the settlement we visited today, closest to the volcano, yes. Evacuating them was the best option. They’re in a suite of rooms on the ground floor here. While you were away, I tried to prevent Mount Vracor from erupting myself, but I wasn’t strong enough. Not until you returned.”
“You cared enough to do that?”
He conjures a wash basin and uses water and a cloth to wipe the worst of the ash from my face. I must look such a mess.
“They are my people. It was time I started behaving like their king.”
“I’m glad you realized that.”
“I realized a lot of things while you were gone.”
His scent is intoxicating. I breathe him in, noting the subtle difference—the same bitter chocolate, but less smoke and more marshmallow. I want to lick him like a chocolate pop.
His tail curls around my leg and there’s a long, languorous thump in my clit. I’ve missed his casually possessive gestures and the way he can make me melt with a single touch, or word.